Adding sensitivity to the surroundings

It’s been on my mind since I was in class 8. Give me a cycle or I won’t take my exams,” says Ankit Patel, emphatically. He missed the exam and took to the wheel with a different perspective.

 As he grew up, the wheel was still there in his subconscious mind but now he could relate it to motion, change and progress. He did not know that the same wheel of the cycle that was so essential to him will become the focus of his latest collection of 25 sculptures in bronze. 

For Patel, the wheel rotates, turns, tilts, jumps over bumps, rises out of rain-drenched earth, goes racing gleefully but it can’t stop. Ankit has picked up a tailor on a sewing machine, a knife sharpener, a couple of children doing a balancing act to show that sense of motion, the journey of the soul within and outside ofitself.

Vallabh the tailor, Tikam the potter, Parag paanwallah are the subjects of Ankit’s sculpted moments. All expressions are conveyed by the alignment of their bodies in motion, the form and texture. Parag paanwallah has a bucket of betel leaves. For this, Ankit has used a fine bronze mesh to suit the need.

His sculptures have a philosophical value too. A couple — on a journey with a trunk and an umbrella — holds hands and walks together, like two wheels moving to complement each other.

At the exhibition there are works by other artists too. Artist Sanjay Srivastava has given a novel twist to a game of chess in the work titled ‘Winner’s Pride’. Aggressiveness is shown by the pawn-like figures roofed under an inescapable pair of giant forms. The fierce spirit of competitiveness a characteristic outcome of the game, exploits the sport to provide the keynote for the artwork.

There are works by other sculptors like Ramesh Chandra Thorat and Ratan Krishna Saha.

The only painter in the group Asit Patnaik, is known for his graphic exactitude, granulated texturing of the backdrop and his deep understanding of the colour palette. In the work titled ‘Thoughtscape’, he practically entices the viewer to delve beyond the surface and come up with an understanding of the silent play of moods that forms in the foreground. 

The exhibition is on view till today at Lalit Kala Akademi from 11 am to 7 pm.